Wither Pat, Wither Will?

Good morning, Stroock's Books people. 

Temps are below freezing this fine morning. A reminder that in this part of the country, November starts autumnally but ends winterly. 

We've got a few things to take care of today so writing will be minimal, we think. Fridays aren't that productive anyhow. Besides, we just about have a rough draft of Ireland. That's what we're calling the novel, for now. World War 1990: Ireland. This will almost certainly not be what we call the finished novel.

Hot Air tells us, 'Liberal Analyst Warns Dems: So What? Big Deal'. Yes, Dems ran under great circumstances and had a great night. In one year another election will be held under different circumstances. And in recent decades it's no slam dunk that the oppo party romps in midterm elections. See 1998, 2002, 2018*, and 2022. Do be sure to click over to Hot Air. 

Also from Hot Air, Tucker kinda sorta walks back some of his comments. Click on thru....We've been thinking a lot about the right and Israel lately. For nigh on 30 years, it's been an article of faith with the right that America must support Israel. In our recollection this begins with the Gingrich era 90's GOP. Look at what we wrote about the right, Jews and Israel in 2018. 

There are growing elements on the right critical of Israel. This includes benign America Firsters who just don't see why we care about a nation in the Middle East. It's okay to be wrong. That ambivalence is good for us pro-Israel types. Don't just assume people support Israel. Persuade people that Israel is great and supporting the Jewish state is in America's interest. 

But there's also the more sinister right, extremists, conspiracy theorists, etc etc who certainly hate Israel and probably hate Jews. We've been dealing with them on Substack. These guys are major assholes. As with the leftwingers who hate Jews, we've no idea what to do about the right wingers who hate Jews. 

Who'd we miss?

We've mentioned Pat Buchanan a couple of times this week. Twenty-five years ago, the conservative movement defenestrated Pat, partly over his economic ideas, partly over some of his historical revisionism. Pat was wrong on the latter but was partially right on the former. NAFTA didn't work. 

We became aware of Mr. Buchanan in the late 1980's. He was a real firebrand on the Old McGlaughlin Group. Even back then a lot of the Official Jew types (thank you Ezra Levant) accused Pat of being an antisemite. Is he? We searched an infamous Buchanan moment on YouTube. We couldn't find his 'Amen Corner' remark (we watched it live), but we found these greatest hits. We've no interest in accusing Pat of Jew-hatred. We don't think he hates Jews. But he probably doesn't like us. He certainly never liked Israel. 

We've rambled a bit. 

Mark Steyn kind of puts our own Operation Hatikva into perspective, 'Scenes from Birmingham last night where the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from attending their football match against Aston Villa...' It takes a thousand Bobbies to ensure a football match between Aston Villa and Maccabee Tel Aviv comes off. On the other hand, it's heartening to see a bunch of Aston Villa fans chant, 'You can stick your Palestine up your arse!' Indeed you can. On the gripping hand, the Yookay sucks, and everyone in Britain knows it. 

*This blog maintains that the 2018 midterms are badly misunderstood. Dems took the house but GOPs held the senate and won key gubernatorial races *cough* Florida, *cough* Georgia. So far nobody else we follow saw what we saw in 2018. This would not be the first time that everyone was wrong except for Will.